The Lion King Complex
by Gothicruby
Summary: He was a broken angel; left with nothing but a pair of broken mechanical wings, and a realization that tore at him from the inside. Dark Ace reveals what he's always known as he holds the young hero's life in his steely cold hands.


**Lion King Complex **

The force of the man's words hit the boy as badly as if he had been stabbed.

There was a stinging at the back of his eyes; he knew the cause.  
It wasn't the concentration of adversary's blood red, almost demonic like eyes, boaring into his very soul; teasing his own emerald orbs with their very much savoured victory. It wasn't said adversary's snarling grin; teeth flashing much like the white hot intensity he felt within his wounded spirit.  
It wasn't even a physical flesh wound. 

The man stood before him held his very life in his hands; one ruthless fist clamped firmly around the rather weak material of his so called armour; but at this moment in time, who was he really kidding with that term?  
It was just a shirt, a reminent of once proud battle armour that had been stitched and knotted and taken in god knew how many times.  
The threads on it were weakening; losing the will to hold it together and threatening to tear right then and there. 

But the tears just wouldn't come; and neither would the break in the seems. 

Not yet...but slowly...

He was dangling cruelly from the elder one's iron-hide grip in an amber, battle strewn sky; with little more than lava-bound wasteland below him while his captor stood safely above the cushiony seat of a skimmer set to neutral. 

"Yes...you remember me now, don't you boy?" 

The boy found it hard to keep his lip from quiverring; the soft tearing of his clothes' material near enough echoed in his ears. 

It was a shame to damage them; they weren't even his clothes...just the shadow of what his father may have worn.  
He couldn't remember. 

"I hated your father." the white, sadistic smirk widened "Hated him more than you," he brought what, was to him; a child, up closer to his face "Could ever even imagine." 

The young one's gloved fists shook; but not in anger, that was painfully obvious.  
He didn't feel like he could take this...he just couldn't swallow it.  
This news, this realization of what he was implying...it was like the effects of a harmful drug; distant and dream like...yet...real, almost. 

"He just had this annoying tendency...now that I think of it, **you've** probably inherited it," he paused; spitting at the statemet "Smothering."  
A growl followed; as his demonic eyes boar further into the young teenager's very being "This annoying smothering habit; not just for _the team,_" 

He used what could only be thought of as a bad immitation of his father; his tone drawn out and deepened slightly.  
At any other moment; perhaps the boy would've laughed, retalliated even. 

Not today. 

"But of me," 

The iron grip of the fist tightened in anger against already tearing cloth 

"Me...he wouldn't let me go," a deepened, more emphasized glare from blood tinted eyes only added to the man's growling voice "Your father; always keeping his hindering wing of 'protection' around the baby of the family. Just holding me back; he didn't dare think of what wonders I could've bestoed upon the Storm Hawks if he'd have let me go..." 

Again; his voice was exaggerated, but not with malice...the red-headed one even dared hope to spy a glint of optimism in his tormenter's eyes.  
Perhaps his 'holier than thou' tone was the closest he'd ever be to relishing the wonders and glories of the life he'd never had; the life that he'd, really, thrown away. 

Ironic how the raven haired man quickly, yet subtly brought his head back down to the earth of his opressive, pessimistic logic. 

"A fool," as soon as his lips touched together; his neutral lips curled smoothly in a malicious smirk "But taken care of; when his _loving, devoted baby brother_ sunk his razor sharp talons right through his formerly prideful wings..." 

And it was then that the dam-like resolve of the once proud Aerrow broke; sending tears spilling from the flood gates of his burning emerald eyes.  
He'd been hit; scarred fatally by realization. 

A sigh; of relief or mocking, he couldn't quite tell emitted from the Dark Ace

"And now you know, my nephew, is why right now I couldn't care less where you end up." he pulled Aerrow's face closer "Be it in a tar pit, in a hospital, or perhaps hanging from a rock ledge. In any case..." once again was he pulled closer; his cheeks passing Dark Ace's ears and chin hanging over his shoulder "remember who _exactly _you're dealing with." 

And he wailed as he was carelessly tossed aside like an unwanted rag doll. 

* * *

Like a broken angel, he fell; mechanical wings long since broken in battle. 

The sulphur of the ever approaching lava aggrivated the already leaking, albeit metaphorical wound in his eyes. 

His uncle...

How could he have missed that? 

His uncle! 

A sob tore through him as memories began to burn their way out of the shadows in his mind; flashes playing like the sequences of a long forgotten movie; ancient and stored. 

Memories; blurred but there_; "Uncie Ace!" _

Even then the man had cared little for him...he could see now; the images twisting viciously; showing the reality of Dark Ace's forced grins and bored sighing looks not just to him; but to his father.

Oh his father..._"The best Sky Knight ever, Uncie Ace!" _

The man had been so willing, warm and caring; always ready to scoop his four year old child up into the protective grasp of his strong arms before roughly, yet affectionately turning to ruffle the jet black hair of the formerly blurred vision of a man that was, in all reality, his uncle. 

This realization...it had hit him worse than the forceful blow he felt from his broken wings catching on the sharpest edge of a cliff; dangling him as coldly as the Dark Ace himself. 

Another sob tore from his lungs at the impact; be it from shock or emphasis he couldn't make out. 

Not anymore. 

They'd both been so affectionate...his father and him...but Ace had brushed them both off as quickly as the blade that pierced his father's heart; or the fist that had swung him off his skimmer. 

The torn logo of his shirt floated down after him; landing before him in the casm.

It tortured him; landing before him, forcing him to look at it through his tears of anguish.  
Hadn't he been punished enough? 

The logo wasn't his; it was his father's. 

But his father was dead; and he, Aerrow, was a mere ghost of what the man was.

From the normally angelic wings of his so called _special move_, to the fiery red spirited hair and usually optimistic glittering green eyes. 

But his father was dead, and inwardly, so was he.

He dangled there; a broken angel robbed of all innocence and dignity as in the hell-fire tinted sky, a pair of blood red eyes continued to glare into his very being from the distance contained within a fast escaping skimmer. 

_the end._


End file.
